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this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Has there ever been a dictator who relinquished power after "fixing" things? Yeah guys, I'm going to need some extra judicial powers and have the military become my personal army, but it's just temporary, I swear.
Yes, the original roman ones. This is the origin of the word. They were appointed for emergencies with a lot of power.
They all gave up their position after a while except for Caesar. When Caesar was appointed as a lifelong dictator, he was shortly after assassinated by most members of the senate. But the turmoil led to the Roman Empire not being "democratic" anyway.
Slight correction, he wasn't assassinated by most of the senate. There were about 60 conspirators out of 200-300, and only a dozen or so actually participated in the assassination (and only 5 actually confirmed to have stabbed him while still alive). Regardless, it's still true that they came to that conclusion after Caesar was declared dictator for life and started taking away senate power
Funny thing is apparently only one of the wounds was lethal, we were literally one dude getting sick off from Caesar just going Palps mode
It's medically pretty unlikely you can be stabbed 60 times and not die till the last guy gets his turn.
Yeah, but he was rustled since they wanted to disband his legions and all that. Who wouldn't be
A general must always have brothers/sisters to carry upon his shoulders
Anyone who wants power, shouldn't have it.
At least we can trust he will give himself a deadline to step down
The heat death of the universe is technically a deadline, right?
If he goes down that's fine by me too, all I'm saying is that I am not that kinda guy and I don't care much either way
Lol
The original office of dictator as defined in the Roman Republic was exactly that,
It was literally the office of "we have tried literally everything else and still have a problem, you there, you seem like a not idiot person, you can do basically anything you want for the next six months or until you solve the problem, after that we'll make cool statues of you if you do a good job."
I'm so happy that a fellow history nerd came here and said it before I could.
Given how the reality can get modified over long periods of history, I have to wonder how much those old dictators stepping down were motivated by threats of stabbing if they didn't.
Well one of them was Cicero, who would have been VERY loudly indignant had there been such a threat,
Not because he intended to defy it, but because he'd be so personally insulted by any insinuation he'd be that kind of dirty politician.
You knew him personally?
No, he was just an extremely prolific writer and a far more prolific narcissist
One of the benefits of writing about yourself, you've got an absolutely amazing subject who can do no wrong.
That's fair :)
Honestly it’d probably work better than our current system.
Just give one random guy carte blanche to run everything. Get immortalized if you do a good job. Get executed if you don’t.
And I’m sure lots of people would take it up, and think that they’d do a good job. And more than likely, they wouldn’t.
I've heard the term 'benevolent dictator' before, but it might be philosophical. It doesn't seem to me that anyone capable of assuming the role could remain benevolent long.
I definetly could
source: trust me, bro.
"Better than Trump" is a pretty damned low bar though
I think if we had a trained monkey with a typewriter, it would do a better job than trump.
If teleported in as is, I'm sure, but you gotta get there first.
I don't think dictatorships are meant to be long term anyway, but I would be careful who I would hand over any power to.
Depends what you mean by 'meant'.
In Roman times
Cincinnatus is always the classical example, as a senator who was named dictator twice and in both cases relinquished his power as soon as the crisis was resolved.
What’s less often mentioned is that the second “crisis” was just a prominent plebeian undermining the prestige of the Senate by providing cheap grain to the poor during a famine—Cincinnatus presided over the plebeian’s extrajudicial murder, and it’s that as much as his subsequent resignation that made him an eternal hero to the Senate.
To be fair until Augustus there was a particular taboo in Rome of coming off as kinglike, being one guy and making a point of stepping on the Senate's toes was a VERY fast way to get yourself killed, see also The Gracchi Brothers and Marius.
Romans hated anything to do with royal aspiration so much that one of their most sadistic pleasures was to watch the former royals of newly conquered lands be forced to march in the victory parade of the lead general of the conquest before being ritually strangled. It took being a literal child for the Roman public to hold back from gleefully jeering you for having been a monarch, nevermind being willing to ask for you to be spared from being killed.
Basically just imagine a several centuries long stretch of peak Robespierre paranoia about anything to do with potential plots on kingly aspirations and you can see why some guy deciding to take state business on himself, especially state business that can earn a lot of public support, would be seen as a dictatorship worthy crisis to the Roman Senate.
And we named a city after this guy?
George Washington
Washington was elected in 1788 and re-elected in 1792. However both were unanimous, unopposed, and done solely by the electoral college. Adams/Jefferson in 1796 was the first proper election, after Washington set the 2-term precedent and relinquished power. That precedent was maintained until FDR served four terms during the First World War sequel, which led to the drafting of the 22nd Amendment to the US constitution limiting presidents to two terms in 1947. It was ratified by 36 of the 48 states in 1951.
Also while trying to remember the dates I read Section IV of the 20th amendment. What the fuck is this word salad? Is this the original “Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like??”
Commas were expensive back then.
Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf?
He was facing heavy domestic and international pressure as well as sanctions on the country. He didn’t do it out of honor.